Semi-Retirement Made Earlier and Easier

Expenditure Update: October 14

October’s expenses came in at a reasonable amount of about $3,810 especially since there was some travelling involved. Stripping out the travel-related expenses to Ho Chi Minh City, the amount for this month would come down to $3,400. It helped that there was amazingly no wedding lunches, dinners or baby showers to attend.

With October’s challenge drawing to a close, you could say it was both a success and a failure. Success as I didn’t spend anything on that category and really cut down my consumption on fast food by a lot. But when I say a lot, it also meant that I didn’t really abstain completely. There were a couple of occasions when I had a free hamburger from the Mac app and since I passed by an outlet, I thought why not?

November’s Challenge: Exercise everyday

I have decided to give my diet a break for November and turn my attention to how I manage my time. Exercising everyday during this semi-retirement is a realistic possibility and that’s the lofty goal from now till the next expenditure update. I am confident of pulling this one off since I have generally been exercising 5-6 times every week for the past couple of months. 😀

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Eating Out: $895.07

Hawker ($211.30) – With much less meals happening at fast food restaurants, there’s a bit of an increase in this section.

Fast Food ($11.10) – Bought a Mac meal for my brother and the Mrs had one filet meal too.

Restaurants ($672.67) – 15 entries here. So on average, we visit a restaurant once every two days. With the OCBC 365 credit card, we are paying for most if not all the meals that we have with our extended families too. So a higher amount here isn’t surprising. Moreover, we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary with a crab feast. 😛

Groceries: $52.40

Supermarket ($19.80) – A couple of trips to get some corn, carrots and fruits that came in handy for breakfast and lunch.

Market ($29.20) – Went to the dry goods market in Bugis to replenish the supply of cashew nuts and pecans. Also bought some chrysanthemum and barley.

Bakery ($3.40) – A couple of loaves of bread

Beverages & Snacks: $23.60

Beverages ($12.20) – Bought a few cans of beer from the airport

Snacks ($11.40) – A couple of Mr Bean ice-cream and also paid for some snacks at Taka when we were out with the family.

Utilities: $157.60

Electricity, Gas & Water ($100.20) – With the USave voucher, the real bill was actually $50 less. As we near the end of the year with cooler temperatures, we should expect to start saving more of the electricity bills.

Cellphones ($57.40) – $28.03 for the Mrs’ plan and $29.37 for mine.

Transport: $100

1 EZ Reload transaction for each of us. A bit of a drop here since the Mrs has been travelling pretty often recently and $50 is really more than enough for me these days.

Departmental: $298

Clothing ($284.70) – 2 Uniqlo t-shirts set me back by $25.80 (got them at the cut & sewn section) and the rest were all the responsibility of the Mrs. Two tops, some dresses, a cardigan and a couple of skirts and even a bag!

Personal Items ($13.30) – An eyebrow pencil from Sasa.

Miscellaneous: $400

Travel ($400) – My Jetstar air ticket to Ho Chi Minh City costs about $150. We also paid for a city tour and another day tour to Mekong Delta. This trip was really affordable since most of the Mrs’s expenses were covered by her company. 😉

It’s almost definitely lower for me since I can cook some simple fare for myself (i.e. steamed corn and carrots with some toasted nuts) and half the days I stay at home reading, writing, watching borrowed Blue-Ray Discs or doing housework. So even transport expenses are dropping.

But with more time, it also means there are more opportunities to take a slow dinner at restaurants. Oops. =p

Normally when I reload EZlink card or cashcard, I will not consider it an expense. Because I’m converting one form of cash to another. When I make a trip and pay by EZlink, or use the cashcard to pay for something, at the point when the value is deducted, I account for that expense.

If we think about it, the stored value in the card cam also easily be conveyed back to cash. Finally, in terms of monitoring expenses, it makes more sense because of I top up $100 this month but make no purchases using the card, I have not actually consumed the $100.